The Roughest Toughest Place On Earth
by Glamourcat
Summary: Logan takes on the greatest challenge of his life on a mission for clean clothing and even Logan’s not sure he can do this!


Title: The Roughest, Toughest Place on Earth  
  
Author: Glamourcat, with special thanks to Kitty for helping her come up with ideas for this piece.  
  
Date: 12/30/01 5:02 pm  
  
Summary: Wolverine takes on the greatest challenge of his life when sent out on a mission and even Logan's not sure he can do this!  
  
Author's Notes: This story started out as a conversation about laundry between my dear beta reader Kitty and myself. The sillier it got, the more I wanted to write about it. I hope you enjoy this small piece of humor. It's not really set in any particular X-Men universe, so there's no continuity to follow. Thanks again to Kitty for not only helping inspire it, but for beta reading it for me!  
  
Logan pulled his jeep into a parking space outside the seedy-looking building. The glass of the front windows was plastered with graffiti and old news flyers. The door stayed propped open with the help of a bottle of Tide detergent.  
  
He sighed, dreading going in there. Still, better to get it over with. Checking to make sure he was armed, he gathered his things together and went inside the joint.  
  
Damn. The laundry mat was full. Not a single washer available. Logan dropped his three laundry baskets in front of the washers and sat down to wait his turn. He kept [one] foot next to his baskets and detergent and one hand wrapped around his roll of quarters.  
  
What a lousy time for the mansion's machines to finally give up the ghost. Logan had been halfway down to the laundry room when Xavier stopped him, saying that the old equipment had finally broken and the new set he'd ordered hadn't been shipped yet. So here he was, stuck washing his tighty- whities in front of a bunch of weird strangers. Three loads of wash which would only take a half hour to wash, and then an hour to dry if he could get all three piles into separate machines. As far as Logan was concerned, that was an hour and a half too long to spend here.  
  
He noticed a woman start to pull her clothing out of one of the washers. Logan stood up, hefting his whites over to the machine to claim it before anyone else in the place did. The woman walked away, leaving the machine open. He stuffed the machine full of his white clothing, added the detergent, and then cursed when he realized he'd forgotten his bleach. He was forced to buy one of those next-to-useless mini bleach packets from the vending machine before he could start his first load of laundry.  
  
At least, he would have bought one of those little packets from the vending machine-if it hadn't eaten his change and given him nothing in return. Growling at the stupid piece of metal, Logan covertly glanced around to see if anyone was looking. Finding the crowd wrapped up in their own business he turned back to the detergent vendor and gave the thing a good swift kick. He dented it, but it also dropped his bleach packet.  
  
Smiling triumphantly, Logan took his bleach back to his machine only to find that while he was gone, someone had removed his stuff, dumped it on the floor, and had taken his machine.  
  
He looked around to see if he could locate the person who'd pre- empted his washer and found his icy glare returned by three young women, two men, and one guy wearing a pink tank top and cut-off jeans.  
  
The man in the pink shirt and cut-offs winked at Logan and blew him a kiss. Shuddering, Logan very carefully kept his back to the wall of machines and picked up his clothing, putting it back into the basket.  
  
Another washer opened up and before anyone else could get to it, Logan was dumping his things in. This time he got his detergent, bleach and money into the machine with no mishaps.  
  
He went back to where he'd left his other two baskets only to find them gone. Frantically he looked around for his missing clothing, only to find them on the chair next to Pink Top. Grimacing, he strode over to his things to reclaim them.  
  
"Oh, so these are yours?" Pink Top asked in a tone that suggested he already knew whose belongings they were.  
  
Logan grunted and picked up the two baskets stacked on top of each other.  
  
"My, you are a strong one aren't you?" Pink Top continued as if Logan had given him a friendly answer. "You must be new, I don't remember seeing you in here before. And I would remember."  
  
Logan rolled his eyes. Great, just what he needed. He should have brought Storm with him, or Rogue. They'd have been great protection. He ignored the irritating man and went back to watching the washers. It's a good thing he did too.  
  
Someone was stopping his machine and trying to put his own things in on Logan's quarters!  
  
Dropping the baskets loudly, he threatened the man.  
  
"I don't think that's a good idea, bub."  
  
The man turned, wide-eyed.  
  
"Hey man, I didn't think that anyone was still using. heh, heh."  
  
"Back. Off."  
  
"Right man, no problem." The little fink slunk off with his clothes.  
  
Logan slammed the door to the washer shut again and restarted the machine.  
  
A black woman next to him pulled her bed sheets out of her machine and walked away. Logan grabbed it for his Machine Wash Colds. Moving faster than he ever had during a training session in the Danger Room, he grabbed his basket, dumped it in, added his soap, slammed the door and dropped the quarters in. Maybe he should initiate this sort of scenario as a training modular for the kids.  
  
Pink Top got up to remove his load of wash from a machine and Logan claimed that one with blinding speed for his last load of wash, the Machine Wash Warms.  
  
Crowing triumphantly, Logan turned back to the waiting area, only to find that there were no seats left in the place at all.  
  
Growling under his breath, Logan found an empty spot on the wall opposite the washers and sat down on the floor.  
  
The owner of the laundry mat sat behind a counter watching TV, stirring herself only to change quarters for people. Her young son, however, was much more active.  
  
The boy must have consumed about a pound of chocolate from the snack vending machine--though from the looks of him the child was wearing most of it around his grubby little mouth and chubby hands.  
  
Logan and the other patrons had been avoiding the boy as he'd run up and down the aisle screaming something about Godzilla. It was Logan's mistake to stop watching for the child just because he was sitting down.  
  
THWAP!  
  
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh." the boy screamed as he ran by Logan with his arms outstretched, pretending to be an airplane.  
  
He had just enough reach to hit Logan on the side of his head and smear leftover Hershey bar in the man's hair.  
  
"Oh, Goddamnit!" Logan cursed, running his hands through his hair to try and remove the sticky chocolate.  
  
He grabbed the first thing at hand to help wipe off the mess. A dryer sheet.  
  
Dryer sheets, for the record, leave behind a springtime fresh scent when used to wipe up melted chocolate.  
  
In a completely black mood, Logan stood and glowered at the three machines his wash were in, willing them to work faster.  
  
Much to his surprise one of them did. His whites were done, and the machine slowly spun to a stop, the red indicator light turning off.  
  
He opened the door, placing his basket underneath to catch his things, when he got a good look at them. A real good look.  
  
Mouth gaping open in horror, Logan realized that everything in the wash had turned a pale shade of rose pink. Frantically, he began to dump the wet clothes into the laundry basket hoping to find something undamaged. He didn't; however, he did find the culprit. A ridiculously small red thong from Speedo.  
  
Straightening up, Logan couldn't fathom how this thing had gotten into his clothes. He looked around, almost panicky, to see whose it was.  
  
Pink Top caught his eye and winked, blowing a kiss at him.  
  
Logan dropped the thong as if it were a snake and kicked it out of his sight. Wiping his hand on his jeans he finished unloading his ruined whites.  
  
The load of colds finished just as he'd gotten everything out, so Logan emptied that machine as well. His warms were still in the rinse cycle so he turned to the wall of dryers, trying to find an empty machine.  
  
The large capacity machines were all in use. Most of the small ones were to, which left the standard sized ones. Great, that meant he had to split the two loads up again instead of saving quarters by drying them together.  
  
Muttering and complaining to himself, he started stuffing a dryer until he couldn't fit anything else in it. That was also when he realized he didn't have any fabric softener and needed a pack of dryer sheets.  
  
"I'll be damned if I let these low-life leeches steal another machine from me," Logan said. "Screw the softener."  
  
He started his first dryer then stuffed the second, no longer caring about what was supposed to be line dry only. He just wanted to get the hell out of there as soon as possible.  
  
He stacked the two baskets on top of the dryers he was using and went back to the third in front of his washer of warms. The red light was off, and the drum had stopped spinning. Logan scooped out the last of his clothing and went back to the dryers with it.  
  
There was one free standard-size dryer open, and he and a woman were both headed for it. Logan lifted one corner of his upper lip and snarled at her.  
  
Surprised, she hesitated for a moment and he dove in and stole the machine.  
  
"Jerk!" she exclaimed and huffed back to her seat.  
  
Logan grinned to himself. He was getting the hang of this environment. He leaned against the dryers and stood dozing, loosing track of time.  
  
Belatedly he realized he couldn't feel the heat coming from the appliance any longer and came fully awake.  
  
All three of his machines had stopped.  
  
Logan pulled his baskets back down from the top of the dryer and started to refill them with clean laundry. Not even stopping to fold anything, he dug through and emptied the appliances.  
  
Like vultures, the other patrons of the laundry mat swarmed in and took the first two machines he vacated. He was halfway though emptying the third when he felt something.  
  
Someone very distinctly pinched his ass.  
  
He jumped, hitting his head on the doorframe of the dryer. Cursing, he stood and turned, sure that it was Pink Top and vowing to lay the guy out, only to find.  
  
A very, very old woman wearing a purple flowered dress and gray shawl. She winked at him and wiggled her fingers at him in a wave.  
  
Logan blinked and shook his head. This was getting way too weird for him.  
  
He finished unloading the last of his clothes and stacked his three baskets back on top of each other, proceeding to make the fastest retreat he'd ever done.  
  
It was almost a relief to see his jeep again. Carefully placing the three baskets on the hood of his vehicle he dug through his pockets for his keys. While looking through his jacket pockets he happened to gaze down at his jeep's steering column. He'd locked his keys in the jeep, still in the ignition.  
  
Lowering his hands to his sides, he closed his eyes and thunked his head against the glass of the driver's side window.  
  
Of course, the corresponding splatter of the plastic baskets he heard was all his clean laundry hitting the parking lot pavement as it was rattled off the hood.  
  
Checking to make sure no one was watching him, Logan extracted a single claw on his right hand. Slicing through the car lock, Logan opened the door and retracted his claw. Bracing the door open with one foot Logan managed to twist around enough to gather the fallen articles, shove them back into the baskets, and hurl them into the passenger's seat.  
  
Back at the mansion, Logan held his laundry baskets as he kicked the front door open, only to find Xavier waiting for him on the other side.  
  
"Logan! I trust your errand went well, you were gone longer than I thought you'd be."  
  
"I am NEVER going back there," Logan rumbled.  
  
"Really? That's a shame. Some of the others needed." Xavier started to say.  
  
Logan dropped his baskets to the floor and whirled on Xavier, sticking one finger an inch away from the man's face.  
  
"Listen, Chuck. That is the roughest, toughest place on earth and I AM NOT GOING BACK!"  
  
He picked up the abused laundry and thundered upstairs, passing Nightcrawler on the way.  
  
"Hi everybody. Hey, does anyone else smell wildflowers? And chocolate?" Nightcrawler asked.  
  
"Not one word, Elf. Not one stinkin' single word," Logan threatened as he continued upstairs and down the hall.  
  
"What was all that about?" Nightcrawler asked the professor.  
  
"I don't know. He only went to the laundry mat," Xavier replied, just as mystified. 


End file.
